The folks at Pirates of the Burning Sea have posted a new developer diary which looks at recent revisions to the item system, and how they brought items in line with the new avatar combat system.

In any RPG, and MMO’s especially, a large source of character progression is through items.

Items can be anything. They can be swords and magic wands, they can be starships and sailing ships. They might provide you some statistical advantage, or they might give you something entirely cosmetic. In all cases, they provide you and your character ways to change and improve.

As Isildur said in his devlog, the AvCom Revision has changed all player stats, and player power is significantly different that the old system. This means that every Avatar item in the game has to be revised and rebalanced to fit the new system. While I’m at it, I’ve taken on the enormous task of adjusting all the outfitting and consumables to make a more cohesive item set for players to use. I’ll go over the ways things have changed, and how items are going to work in the future.

Read more here.